


A Scientist is Sometimes Late

by atlas_white



Series: Visions From Night Vale [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is albinistic, Fluff, M/M, they're married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 04:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15380307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlas_white/pseuds/atlas_white
Summary: In which Carlos is very late coming home one day, and Cecil is very upset about it.





	A Scientist is Sometimes Late

****

       Something _terrible_ had happened.

       Cecil was sitting on the couch, tendrils spilling over the back of it as he stared at his phone; pale blue eyes, pale blue screen. He tapped the screen, and it began to buzz softly as it simulated ringing to indicate that it was sending out a call to another cell phone. He felt a sharp pain, and then blood trickled from his nose, and so he sighed and tapped the screen again to cancel the call. It wasn’t going through.

       Cecil wiped his nose with his palm. He stared at the tiny smear of blood, crimson against the ivory of his skin. He groaned and slumped over onto his side with a quiet but satisfyingly dramatic _thump_.

       He was so anxious now, and it was growing worse with every minute that passed (differently from the way minutes passed elsewhere, he couldn’t help but thinking, that was what Carlos had told him). He was still staring at the phone, at a list of undelivered calls that filled the entire screen, except for that thin dark slice at the top that told him that the battery was at 53% and that it was _much later than it was supposed to be._

        He pulled his feet up onto the couch with him and his tendrils undulated in loose, waving patterns beneath him. His mind was racing with awful possibilities, and his stomach was twisting in knots. He felt like a puppy waiting for its human to come home, or a man fearful of receiving terrible news. The not knowing was the worst part, or maybe that was the undelivered calls.

       Something terrible must have happened. He knew this because Carlos was late and his calls weren’t going through.

       Cecil felt restless, helpless. He turned onto his back and put his bare feet up into the air and groaned loudly because this was the only means he had to express his anxiety and unease.

       Somewhere above him, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lived in His Home shook her head. She would have rolled her eyes, but she didn’t have any. Then she scuttled off across the ceiling, because Cecil wasn’t doing anything interesting.

       It was getting pretty late. Carlos was already pretty late. Cecil felt like his world was coming apart one thread at a time. Two of his tendrils tied themselves into a knot by accident and couldn’t come undone again, and he didn’t even notice. He was busy working himself slowly but surely towards a panic wondering why Carlos wasn’t here and why he wasn’t answering his phone because heaven knows he could never ever be without him.     

        “Hey, honey! I’m home! Sorry I’m late!”

       At the sound of that melodic voice, Cecil sat bold upright, dropping his phone. He all but launched himself onto his feet and ran to the front door. Carlos was wholly unprepared for the impact of the albinistic radio host who slammed into him, whose arms and tendrils were suddenly wrapped around him and whose voice was quite abruptly in his ear.

        “Oh, _Carlos!_ Carlos, where on earth _were you?_ I’ve been worried sick!” Cecil cried. He nuzzled against Carlos, and a dampness was left behind. “I called you a bunch of times but it wasn’t going through and it hurt my fingers and that last time I got a nosebleed!”

        “Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” Carlos soothed Cecil, rubbing his upper back. “I didn’t mean to worry you. There was an accident on the way back and the road was blocked off, first there was all this traffic, then I had to take a detour, and my battery died so I couldn’t call you or use the GPS so it took even longer. Are your fingers OK? Your nose?”

        Cecil huffed, because he felt like he’d been really been wronged by this chain of events, even being fully aware that they were under no one’s control, least of all Carlos. He held the scientist, _his husband_ (such a beautiful word, magnificent!) a little more tightly and kissed his cheek.

       “Well, alright. I suppose I’ll have to forgive you,” he said, his voice gentle, rather than reluctant, shaking slightly and trying to keep itself steady while his hands held to the smooth cotton of Carlos’s lab coat. “And I’m fine. Now that you’re here I am. But you owe me some _serious_ cuddles.”

       Carlos turned and pressed a kiss to Cecil’s forehead. He knew how much his husband worried, and he didn’t like to be the cause of said worry. Fortunately, he was very much in the mood to get in those serious cuddles. “You got it, babe.”

        He barely managed to set his keys and spent phone onto the counter before he let himself be whisked away to the couch where Cecil had formerly been sulking, where now he and his husband sat in comfortable love together.

        With nothing else to ask, and little more to tell, Cecil leaned on Carlos, half atop him while the scientist held him in his arms and told him with exuberance about the day’s events. Cecil rested his ear against Carlos’s chest, his hand next to his cheek, and let the sound of his husband’s heart be a soothing ambience while he took in every word of his story about science Cecil couldn’t understand and people he had only briefly met with the most rapt attention, hanging on every syllable because it was Carlos who uttered them.

      He was freed entirely from the anxiety that had plagued him only minutes before, and had now not a care in the world, because Carlos was here and all was once again as it should be.


End file.
